Too Late
by Ferowyn
Summary: Fred and George cannot be without each other. However, they are still brothers. And siblings are born to make your life harder.


This is my fill for the The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition, Round 11 (BellyBats Chaser 2) Prompts:  
_Though sometimes it might not seem like it, we all know that, deep down, we love our siblings a lot. They're the people who know just how to get on your nerves, but they can also be the people who know just how to make everything that little bit better._  
Welcome to the sibling round!  
This Is Not A Test (3), "Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them." (11) and Sweet as honey (12)

* * *

**oOoOo**

* * *

**Too Late**

Fred is the childish one. He is also the younger one, although everyone assumes that George is. But, well, everybody thinks that Fred is George and George is Fred, so that is not really surprising.

Which is a rather curious fact, after all very few people are able to see the differences between the two boys. Even at the best of days.

Which leaves the question how either of them can be thought of as 'Fred' or 'George'.

Well.

The answer to that is as simple as it is complicated: There actually _are_ ways to tell the two wizards apart. Not in their everyday behaviour, and certainly not in their appearances, however, they do react differently when it comes to reflexes.

So, Molly and Arthur can tell their children apart. At least most of the time. They can see those differences, have learned to seem them, and they have named one character Fred and the other George. They also know who (they think) is who.

Unfortunately… who they call Fred thinks of himself as George, and the other way round. Shit happens.

Also, it is the twins' highest and upmost goal in life to be indistinguishable.

Shit happens squared.

* * *

oOoOo

* * *

Fred and George were cute three-year-olds, sweet as honey.

However, they were twice as devilish.

And neither of them was ever seen alone.

They had been born only minutes apart, later spending basically every second of their short lives with each other. They _could_ not be without the other. It was a curious phenomenon, the reason for which they would not ever really find out.

Back then, all they knew was that something felt just not right when they were apart.

So they made sure they were not.

And it did not take them long to figure out the benefits of that arrangements.

Both of them were curious minds, and in that context as mischievous as they were actually scientifically interested. Chaos… soon became their best friend, and they knew all too quickly how to cause it.

Also, soon they learned that their 'anonymity', people not knowing who was who – that it offered them many opportunities. As well as safety.

In their tiny three-year-old minds they realized that they could not be without each other.

So they made the best of it.

* * *

Never did they boys let show any disagreements between them.

However, that did not mean that there were none – rather to the contrary.

Living so close to each other, doing _everything_ together, meant that there were lots and lots of topics they could disagree on, thousands of problems they could quarrel over, the tiniest of events setting one off – and inevitably the other.

Sometimes they would hate each other.

And still they always stuck together.

It was the best they could do, with so many siblings who were at each other's throats all the time. In private they could disagree all they wanted, as long as they appeared united when they were with the rest of their family.

Because no one could get even the slightest of chances to bring them apart.

Ever.

* * *

The two boys could fight over and quarrel about anything and everything.

When they were still of preschool age (in muggle terms, of course), it would be a soft toy, or a moving dragon figure. Later it was who won the games they played, who had more sweets, who got to eat first. Then they went to Hogwarts and their issues of dispute changed again, this time to homework deals, detentions, the planning of pranks and pocket money.

However, only very rarely did they bear the other a grudge, usually being offended for a bit and then calming down again, before directly going back to being the devilish duo.

They knew how to upset each other, how to really insult each other, and how to forgive each other.

Within minutes.

Still.

There were a few topics… they could never agree upon.

One of them was the question whether a cat or an owl would be a preferable pet, another dealt with the potion they needed for their _Ton-Tongue Toffee_, and a third was about an old bet, the debts for which neither had paid off yet.

And another one… was Harry.

* * *

Being in love when you have a twin you are basically glued to cannot be easy.

Well, at first it was. After all, they were both convinced that one day they would both marry their mother. Just like Percy would, and Ron had said so, too.

Then it became more complicated.

In retrospect they could not have said which was worse: When both of them fell for the same girl, or when they fell for different ones.

The latter was troublesome because either of them wanted to spend their time with a witch, instead of with each other or – worse – with the other one and _his_ beloved.

Chasing after the same girl… did not present with the same problem. However, they soon figured out the downsides. After all, the girl would have to make a decision… a decision that would separate them, and make one very unhappy.

And ultimately the other as well.

So, they decided to leave it be. They were happy enough with each other, because, despite being 'just' brothers, they had that one person everybody wished for, that one person that would put them over everyone else.

They had each other.

And they knew, they would need no one else.

Well.

At least until Harry came along and gave them the prize money he had won in the Triwizard Tournament. They had spent all year _not_ looking at him, at the way he was growing into a man's body, after all he was male and the same person and they _needed nobody_.

However, there was nothing they could do.

Not about Harry, who had stolen his way into both of their hearts without the consent of either one.

At first neither of them admitted it, not to himself and not to the other, afraid of what it might mean.

The feelings stayed, though, all through the summer, through those few weeks Harry spent in Grimmauld Place, and followed them into the new school year.

Their last.

One last year they would have to go through, before they could open their own store and live on their own, and do whatever they wanted, and forget about Harry and those stupid feelings.

Unfortunately… Harry always was a person who is not easily forgotten.

Especially not with the DA running, and the two older boys opting to train him, showing him a few tricks, and Harry spending Christmas with them, and Harry being here, and Harry being there, and Harry making himself comfortable in their hearts, obviously planning on staying there.

Which was exactly what led them to disagreeing about him:

They knew he would not be easy to get over.

So, Fred wanted to tell him.

And George wanted to leave him out of this.

They spent days on end discussing this problem, never agreeing, never coming to a conclusion – said problem, however, solved itself in the end.

Or rather, Harry solved it.

He went and told them about the prophecy (because he needed to tell somebody, and not Ron or Hermione, who would freak out on his behalf), looking for someone who would protect _him_ for a change, instead of the other way round.

In the end he never left.

And suddenly everything was easy again.

The two brothers would probably never agree on anything concerning Harry (what to give him for his birthday, who should cook for him, whether to wake him or not, what they should call the prank-sweet they had designed especially for him, how to get him to come over, …), but that was not a problem any longer.

Because there was no way Harry would keep out of their discussions.

Which was also a novelty.

Harry was the first person they let see that they were siblings like everyone else, just brothers who liked to taunt each other, but who also always knew the right words to say.

Yes, with Harry everything was easy, and good, and so damn _right_.

Until their mother found out.

It was the night they had picked Harry up from Privet Drive for the last time. Mad-Eye had just died, Mundungus had just betrayed them, and George had just lost an ear.

Emotions were running high, and at some point in between Harry, who was way beyond worried (and guilty and terrified) somehow let slip what he felt for George.

At first Molly Weasley was excited.

Until she found out that he felt the same for Fred.

And that the three of them were _together_.

There was a lot of yelling that evening, Molly refusing to believe that it was real, that they were being serious, yelling something about a test, and no matter how often they told her that this is not a test, and that she would have failed had it been – she would not relent.

Not even when all of their present siblings and their father ranged themselves with the twins.

In the end Molly arranged sleeping arrangements that kept her sons far from each other - which everyone should know was a bad thing - _and_ from Harry, and for the rest of the holidays she was busy keeping either of them occupied with the wedding.

It worked.

Even with her two strictly speaking adult boys.

Then Harry left, hunting horcruxes, never getting a chance to say good bye.

The twins knew not if he was alive, or captive, and suddenly all they had left again was each other. The had fled the Burrow, avoiding their mother and trying their best to find out anything they could about Harry.

However, they did not learn a thing.

They only saw him again when he returned to the castle, ready to battle his archenemy.

A battle both of them knew they would fight with him.

* * *

A battle Fred did not make it out of alive.

* * *

oOoOo

* * *

Harry never recovered.

He had lost too many that night, and George… could not be George anymore, without Fred.

They _could_ not be separated.

Just like they had known, when they had barely been children.

In the end Harry left, never to be seen again, and, deep down in his heart, George knows that he is dead. He also knows that he himself will not be too long to follow.

With deep, destructive anger he thinks about his mother.

What she took from him - _them_ - when she kept him and his brother away from each other and the one they loved.

And he knows that he will never be able to forgive her. Especially not since she never stopped thinking that it was the right thing to do.

No regregts about forbidding their relationship, not even in the aftermath of Fred's death.

_Children begin by loving their parents;_George thinks, _it just works like that. However, __after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them._

He will not be able to forgive.

Never.

It is too late for that.

Fred is gone, and Harry, too.

It is too late for anything.


End file.
